These famous words are inscribed prominently inside the dome of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” (Image credit: Jerry Stratton, via Wikimedia Commons)

In a radio interview earlier this week, we discussed how some see the tables turned when it comes to abortion—that those who favor limited government “suddenly” want government intervention to forbid abortion, and those who favor expansive government “suddenly” want government to stay out of this “personal” decision. (Of course, how can it be personal since it involves another human being in her womb?)

But are the tables really turned? No. And I think the best answer I have read in response to this came back in 2002 from columnist Joseph Sobran, who wrote of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion:

Ostensibly libertarian, the ruling was actually one of the most tyrannical acts in American history. What greater power can the State claim than the power to redefine human life itself – to withdraw protection from an entire category of human beings? And what greater power could the Federal Government usurp than the power of the individual states to protect innocent life from violent death? (Quoted in Subtracting Christianity p. 248)

So, what cloaks itself as a freedom from government intrusion is, in fact, an expansive and intrusive act of government that has declared “legal” the death of well over 50 million children since 1973—and declared “illegal” most attempts by states to limit it in any way. Even common sense measures—like expecting the “clinics” where such dangerous procedures take place to meet minimum medical standards—are set aside by the Supreme Court over a supposed constitutional right that is nowhere actually mentioned in the Constitution at all.

Sobran continues:

The Court arbitrarily ruled that the U.S. Constitution shelters abortion. Did the court cite any passage in the Constitution saying so? No. Did it find any evidence that the framers hoped to protect abortion? No….It merely discovered, all of a sudden, that the abortion laws of all fifty states had been violating the Constitution all along, even when nobody suspected it. (Ibid 248-249).

Yes, the Roe decision, while admitting no explicit “right” to abortion existed in the Constitution claimed to find it the “emanations and penumbras” of the Constitution. And this sort of thinking has dominated the Court ever since, wherein many things are discovered in the Constitution that we never knew were there.

Enter judicial activism and the paradoxical result that something the government is forbidden to do (i.e. outlaw or even limit abortion) becomes the very means by which the federal judiciary can eventually “justify” almost anything it wants to do.

The cultural revolution has consistently marched under the banners of tolerance and freedom. But it is a cloak, and the tyranny of relativism always and eventually shows itself for it is: a demand that you and I will comply with its agenda or face serious consequences—legally, financially, socially and otherwise.

There is nothing of limited government in the legalization of abortion. It was and remains an abuse of power because it enshrines a lie, legalizes the death of tens of millions, and penalizes those who seek to end the bloodshed or even merely refuse to cooperate in making it available. If someone wants to call this act of the Court “libertarian,” they (currently) have the right of free speech to do so. But the truth is that they are staring tyranny right in the face.

It was an act on a par with any horror committed I by Nazism. It has consigned millions of babies to execution simply because they were unwanted. It induced victim hood in mothers and created a industry for baby body parts. The USA that believes it values life used freedom much in the same way their was a freedom to own slaves or kill minoroties such as gypsies Slavs and Jews. Freedom to do an evil and then quote the law as justification. Or change the law to allow an evil. An immoral law is no law. The US congress thinks it has authority in areas it has none such as marriage and moral issues. It has a duty to harmonise itself with objective reasoned truth. Killing those forming in the womb is murder pure and simple and the attrocity is millions have perished this way, other nations have aped the USA as we seem to do and it has spread worldwide. Why did the USA fight nazism and communism when it kills just as they did?

Posted by Richard Connell on Sunday, Jul, 31, 2016 12:35 AM (EST):

Monsignor, I salute for quoting the late Joe (“Call me Joe,” he would say in interviews.) Sobran, a hero of mine. He paid the price for his Catholic identity and he deserves to be remembered. Also, you can you pick just about any paragraph he wrote at random and it will be worth reading, if only for the clarity of his prose. Also, he was an excellent public speaker, as one can find out by searching for him at YouTube or C-Span.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Saturday, Jul, 30, 2016 8:37 AM (EST):

GW, why have we lost anyone’s trust? Back in the 19th century when all states outlawed abortion, people weren’t afraid to consider what abortion actually is. Today, however, no one on the pro-choice (really pro-abortion) side considers what abortion is. They see it as merely a woman’s “right,” without any particular consideration as to its effect on anyone else, or even its effect on the women who procure them except in the most immediate term. In fact, I suggest that many of them would even take offense at your implication that abortion is justified by “problems” that might be “solved” another way, since that implies that abortion isn’t a perfectly fine “solution” in itself.

It’s one thing to disagree with someone on something that cannot be proven but only perceived or accepted, such as that God exists, that life is worth living or that people should be free to pursue their own happiness. You can’t really argue with such a person, since they’ve chosen to stand on a different First Principle, or often no principle at all. But in this case we have one group who simply ignores what already has been proven, because it reveals inconvenient facts that interfere with their immediate desires.

How to bring them back to reality? I agree that the best method is debatable. My own feeling is that people have a sense of discomfort when they’re not being entirely honest with themselves, even when messages from many other sources support maintaining their position. So I keep reminding them of the facts and exposing the fallacies in the ideas that enabled them to practice atrocities freely, hoping something will click with some of them. I also do what I can to make it easier for people to avoid the wrong “choice” of course, such as donating goods and funds to crisis pregnancy centers. And I imagine how much more would be done for these women if our nation suddenly got a conscience and realized how horrible is the choice it’s been offering them (or sadly even expecting them to make).

Posted by GW on Friday, Jul, 29, 2016 8:36 PM (EST):

Monsignor, congratulations. You’ve won the theological battle; you are correct in your assertions (as far as I know). I wonder why we’re losing the war.

Did the Court “withhold protection from an entire class of human beings? I don’t think the court’s opinion said those words, but one is entitled to believe that the words you quote described their intent.

How about this, Monsignor: why do women get abortions? What drives them to such an act? Why is it that I read so often about women coming into those clinics - and yes, Monsignor, they’re clinics, not “clinics” - who the clinic workers recognize as having recently been manning the protest lines outside their doors?

Are they all evil? Are they enjoying the act of destroying the life within them? Is it just, as I hear so often, a matter of convenience to them?

When does the vociferously self-righteous staff of the Register begin to ask those questions, and then challenge their own flock - of which I am one - to meet those needs, solve those problems, and begin to end abortion in our culture?

When do conservative Catholic priests stop preaching to the choir and start challenging the choir to come up with solutions?

Just this week, Bishop Tobin in Rhode Island saw fit to call out Senator Kaine’s pro-choice views. Bishop Tobin is a spirtual leader, after all; that’s what we should expect from him. On the other hand, why do Bishop Tobin and Monsignor Pope never seem to challenge us, we Catholics, who used to be the conscience of the nation?

While there is no doubt that you are correct in what you assert, Monsignor, there’s also no doubt that the pro-choice majority in this country is not listening. Of course, it may be due to the sickness of our society, but it’s just as likely due to the fact that they hear preaching from the hierarchy and hatred from the flock (as evidenced by the comments on social media as well as other lay Catholic writers). Whatever it is, they’re not listening, and they don’t trust us.

Of course they don’t. We lost their trust years ago, and we haven’t earned it back.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Thursday, Jul, 28, 2016 10:38 PM (EST):

Well-worded. The justices knew they could not make a decision about abortion without first addressing the question of when a human life begins. The problem is that that hadn’t been a question for about a century and a half. So they attempted to make it a question once again by considering legal, religious and philosophical positions on abortion that predated current medical knowledge. That should have made such positions irrelevant, but the SCOTUS managed to conflate them with the truth of the matter and thereby claim a lack of “consensus” as to when a human life begins. In other words, they used ancient ignorance to excuse their decision. What a travesty of reason.

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Msgr. Charles Pope is currently a dean and pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, where he has served on the Priest Council, the College of Consultors, and the Priest Personnel Board. Along with publishing a daily blog at the Archdiocese of Washington website, he has written in pastoral journals, conducted numerous retreats for priests and lay faithful, and has also conducted weekly Bible studies in the U.S. Congress and the White House. He was named a Monsignor in 2005.